Nothing Is True
by Golden-Iris158
Summary: Full summary inside. It was too long for me to type it in this small space.  AU/OOC. Valentine is involved a bit in here too.
1. Prologue

**Full summary & A/N at bottom. AU/OOC.**

**Special thanks to my beta for getting this back to me so quickly and helping me figure out one particular error in here. I love ya!**

**Disclaimer: Everything Mortal Instruments related is rightfully own by the amazing Cassandra Clare and her brilliant mind. I am merely just a puppeteer who gets to toy around with her characters. If that makes any sense 0.o**

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><p>The wind howled and shuddered against the window pane, rattling the thin glass. The smell of blood swirled around the living room area where two bodies lay face down, slaughtered and beaten to death. The blood on the hard wooden floors had long since dried out to a thin, brown crusted coating, spreading out like limbs on a dead tree. The killer stared with disdain at the scene before her, her eyes roaming over the dead bodies the way a scientist would look over an experiment. Silent. Calculating. Observing.<p>

It was messy, she noted absently, a lot more messier than usual. The larger male was prepared for her arrival, waiting for his time to come to an end. He had surprised her with a shotgun, holding it in his hands as if it would help him, as if it would save him from her. The appearance of a gun made it harder for her to kill him quickly and silently. Instead of slitting his throat in his sleep as she usually would've done, she ended up having to dodge shotgun shells that were being blown at her repeatedly. His wife woke up and, before she knew it, she was downstairs lying in a pool of her own blood. She had already killed the man by that time; if he would've been alive any longer, the whole neighborhood would've woken up eventually, startled by the sounds of gunshots.

Killing his wife wasn't part of the plan, but she had no choice. It was them or her and, in the end, it would always be her. Still, it had set her back a couple of minutes, something that happened very rarely during her jobs. It not only took away her precious minutes, it also upset _him_. Having a punctual master was nothing to be proud of, especially if she was a minute late in calling him and telling him that all had gone well.

Something buzzed inside of her pocket and she groaned internally. "Speak of the devil," she mumbled and took her phone out, not even bothering to check the screen name. "It's done," she said bluntly, "he's dead."

"Then why didn't you call?" the voice on the other end of the line asked withan eerily calm demeanor. She cringed inwardly. Usually, when he was at his worst, he acted patient and understanding, then he would lash out, vicious, menacing. It was moments like those that she hoped toavoid.

"There were other casualties," she paused and looked at the dead bodies oncemore, "I had to eliminate the other resident."

"The wife?"

She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily, puffing her cheeks. "Yes."

"Good," he said, "the less witnesses the better."

She longed to ask a question, something that always nagged at her mind whenever she was sent on her missions. Never had she had the courage to ask it, but now, it seemed acceptable. "Why him?" she whispered into the though she didn't know him, she had seen pictures of the man around the house. And in every one he was smiling or laughing, an expression of pure happiness on his face. Surely, he couldn't have done anything bad?

"Why do you want to know?" he asked after a brief second of silence.

She shrugged even though he couldn't see her. "Just curious. He doesn't seem like the type of guy you would normally send me to go after."

He sighed, the force of wind causing the phone lines to crackle with static, and she heard a rustle of papers before he answered, "Are you doubting me?" he asked with a sort of fierce calmness, and she knew she'd gone too far. If he even sensed a speck of doubt in her, she would be dead before she could even blink.

"No, I'm not-"

"Then why are you wasting my time asking stupid questions?"

She said nothing. The anger was evident in his voice, barely hidden, but it was there. And she didn't want to deal with his mood later on when she returned home.

"That's what I thought. Now hurry up and finish what you have to do. Discard the bodies, burn the house and leave nothing behind. Return home as soon as you're done."

"Yes sir."

The buzz of the dial tone answered her stiff reply.

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><p><strong>I guess I should start with the summary first, huh? I'll try to explain it as best as I can.<strong>

**Summary: Clary is an assassin raised by her vengeful father Valentine who uses her to kill his friends that turned against him sixteen years ago when they were all banded together in a cult called The Circle. They killed his wife Jocelyn and, ever since then, he's been patiently waiting for the chance for revenge. With only one surviving Circle member left, Valentine searches for their whereabouts, moving him and his daughter to a neighborhood where he suspects they may be.**

**Clary, a fully devoted daughter to her father, kills mercilessly and without a second thought. Years of living under her father's watchful eye has left her cold and distant, uncaring to anyone or anything; the perfect assassin.**

**Jace is just a boy who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, as he thinks, in the right place at the right time. While wandering around downtown, he spots an unusual fiery head of hair and is immediately captivated by the short tempered beauty.**

**As the two become closer together, it gets dangerous. Valentine, who is on the verge of finding the Lightwood's location, is keeping an even tighter leash on Clary, who unfortunately, is losing focus on the mission at hand. All the while, poor, clueless Jace is left alone in the dark, trying to fight his way through the cold, thick wall of Clary's emotions.**

**0_0 I know it sounds confusing now, but I promise, if any of you have questions, PM me and I will answer as thoroughly and honestly as I can without spoiling anything from future chapters in the story. And since I'm grounded and technically not supposed to be on fan fiction, updates will be irregular. But I will work on chapters while I'm at school *winks***

**Now, for those of you who have read my other story Standing On The Edge know that I put it on Hiatus and said that I might continue it. Well, it seems that I lied and I will not be continuing the story. Sorry if anyone became infatuated with it, as sucky as the story was. **

**Oh! Me and my beta had some technical difficulties sending the document to eachother so when I uploaded it on FF it came all bunch up in one huge paragraph. I had to go through it and separate EVERYTHING and some words weren't spaced apart so I tried to find as many of those as I could. I have a feeling that I missed some so if you guys spot any *looks around* tell me so I can fix it. **

**And there was some other things that I had hoped to present here and now but I seem to have forgotten it. Damn.**

**This must be the longest A/N I have ever written *frowns* I'll try to work on that.**

**One last thing, I swear! I apologize (kinda) if the idea of Clary being an assassin - yes, that is in fact Clary in the beginning who killed those people - is hard for some of you to grasp. My sister pointed out that Clary being all bad-assy might not sit well with the readers. She didn't use those exact words but it was something along those lines. I've just had an obsession with assassins lately, what with me playing Assassins Creed:Brotherhood non-stop and reading this really good assassin book that my friend let me borrow.**

**Okay, I'll shut up now **


	2. Chapter 1

**Okay, so, this is a flashback scene. I'm thinking that Clary is about 14 in here so she acts differently than she does in the present. And it was supposed to be longer but due to extreme laziness, I only got this much done. **

**Now here comes the depressing part. The Disclaimer *dramatic music***

**Disclaimer: All rights go to Cassandra Clare. She created Jace, not me. She owns The Mortal Instruments, not me. She is awesome and I am not. . . Need I say more?**

**Special thanks to my beta who got this back to me so fast! Thank ya!**

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><p>She padded across the floorboards in her lightweight black slip-ons, her feet moving quickly but silently, trying her hardest not to make a sound. If she made it to the other end of the room without activating one of the steps, she would be safe. One step, that's all it took, one step and it was all over. This particular training session was supposed to teach her how to walk like a shadow, how to blend in with the darkness, welcome it into her open arms. As part of being an assassin, her kills had to be completed skillfully and soundlessly, no less subtle than a mere breath of the wind.<p>

The very floor she walked on had springs under every single floorboard. That is, if she were to apply too much pressure on one step, the spring would let off a barely audible squeak, alerting Valentine of her mistake.

She balanced lightly on the tip of her toes, careful to even put her weight on each step. Her eyes focused, not on the floor beneath her, but straight ahead, staring at an invisible point in the distance. She'd learned that if she stared at something unmoving, she would be able to walk steadily without wavering from her rhythmic progression of movements. Just as she moved her foot to continue on forward, she saw something flutter out of the corner of her eye. Instinctively, her eyes darted towards the moving object, her mind going over the possibilities of what it could be.

Her balance lost, she stumbled and put her foot down harder than she had intended to, setting off the spring underneath.

_Shit._

She didn't move. She hardly even breathed.

_I failed, _she thought desperately, _I failed, I failed, I failed. _

Her heart raced and her breath came in uneven gasps, the realization of what she'd just done striking her with fear. She knew Valentine was standing there in the doorway, arms crossed, his sharp gaze taking in the scene before him. She kept her eyes on his black business shoes, polished to a shine so severe that it could be used as a mirror.

_Perfect, _she thought, _he likes everything to be perfect. His shoes. His clothes. Me. But I'm not. I messed up. _

All she wanted to do was make him happy, to make him look at her the way a father was supposed to look at his daughter. With pride and adoration and love.

But all that seemed beyond his emotional reach.

"Clarissa," he spoke, his voice calm with an underlying tension. She almost flinched at the sound of his voice.

_Too calm, he's too calm._

"Come here."

She walked over to him slowly, keeping her steps light so as not to set off another spring.

"Look at me," he demanded once she stood in front of him.

The air around her seemed to stand still. She couldn't meet his eyes in fear of seeing his anger directed towards her.

She should've known better than to disobey him.

His hand struck out, too fast for her to block it, and whipped across her cheek, "I said look at me!" he yelled and grabbed her face, lifting it up towards his own, squeezing hard enough to make her yelp and tug at his arm in resistance. "What happened?"

"I - I tripped. I saw something move and lost my balance. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- "

"What is the first lesson that I have taught you?"

Clarissa swallowed and tried speaking as clearly as she could, even though her cheek was numb, "To lose focus is to give the opponent the higher advantage. Never lose focus and never let the opponent win."

He gripped her face tighter in his hand and smiled with sick satisfaction at the tears that welled up in her eyes, "And what did you do?"

"I lost focus."

"And, if you were to be out on the field fighting another, what could have happened?"

"I could've died," she said no louder than a whisper, her throat felt tight with the tears she tried to hard to keep back.

"Well, it's good to know that you're not completely stupid." He let her go and smoothed down his suit, even though no apparent wrinkle could be seen on his starched jacket. She stumbled backward and caught herself just in time, refraining from rubbing her jaw or touching her cheek to let her father know how much he had hurt her. He stared down at her, his black eyes like that of a soulless bottomless pit, and beckoned her with a finger, "Come," he said, his voice portraying none of the anger that had erupted earlier, "I have decided what your punishment shall be."

Her father had never been one for kindness, he never showed that he cared for her, never offered any sort of comfort to his only daughter. Even so, Clarissa wasn't surprised when she found out what cruel punishment her father had conjured up for her.

He had laid out a pathway filled with burning hot coals, stretching twenty feet across and five feet wide, the steam radiating off like phantom snakes slithering in midair. The coals glowed the sort of orange you see at the first peek of sunrise - hissing when they moved. She had to walk across the coals, barefoot, in under three minutes, while dodging throwing knives. Her feet couldn't touch anything other than the coals beneath her and, if she tripped once, there would be hell to pay.

In the end, she barely made it with a couple shallow wounds from the knives and a minute and forty-six seconds to spare. Her feet burned with such intensity that it hurt to think about them. She lay, panting, sweating from the heat and tired from exhaustion, at the feet of her father who looked at her with that same emotionless gaze that made her feel as if she'd done something wrong. He kneeled down next to her, careful not to let any part of his clothing touch her filthy body, and picked up her foot in one hand, examining it for a brief second before carelessly dropping it. She was too tired to cry out at the amount of pain that shot up her leg, too tired to cry as her father walked away without so much as a backward glance, only stopping to say, "You know how to treat that." In a flat voice before exiting the room.

She could've laid there for hours for all she cared. Only when the pain became too much to bear did she attempt to stand up. It took her three tries of getting up on her hands and knees and trying to exert pressure on one foot, only to end up falling down again in a helpless heap of silent cries and pitiful whimpers before finally deciding that crawling was the best option of transportation she had as of the moment.

In every house they lived in, her father always established a room dedicated to healing ointments and deathly poisons. Cabinets upon cabinets were filled with jars of medicines and herbs, some of which she suspected were illegal. She only knew a select few of the herbs that her father kept well-stocked - the ones that she used on a daily basis to heal her when she had been cut with a poison-tipped knife during one of her training sessions. Carefully hoisting herself up onto a chair, Clarissa reached up to open the cabinet door and immediately spotted what she needed. She picked up the small container labeled _Calendula _and popped open the lid. An unpleasant scent immediately wafted out from the exposed cream inside and Clarissa struggled not to gag. Dipping two fingers into the jar, she scooped out a glob of the yellow substance and applied a thin coat to her foot, taking care not to rub too hard but massage it deep enough so it dissolved in her skin. She repeated the process with her other foot and put the container back in the cabinet.

Curling up in the uncomfortable, cracked upholstery, Clarissa was asleep within minutes. When she awoke hours later, her back stiff and drool sliding off her numb cheek, a light blanket had been laid over her. Her feet felt wet and, with a sleepy glance towards the table, she spotted an open jar, her eyes barely making out _Calendula _written in neat handwriting on the side of the jar, before she dozed off into oblivion.

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><p><strong>So, yeah. Very short. Not much happens. It was more of a fillertorture scene. You get to see how cruel Valentine is and a bit abusive too. He's got some issuuuuues!**

**Okay, so, maybe he didn't hit Jace in TMI - did he? I forget - but he's sort of abusive in here. But, see! At the end he lays a blanket over her and applies some more of the _Calendula_ on her feet. He's not all _that_ bad.**

**And yes, Clary is faithfully dedicated to her father, heart and soul. She thinks the moon and sun set and rise on his command. **

**Questions? Comments? Hate comments? Fire away!**


End file.
